a surprisingly sweet sewing blog

Tag Archives: serger

I’ve been wanting to make leggings for while now. Ever since October when I made a wonder woman costume. (the blog was under a different name then) the fabric was this awesome 4 way stretch lycra. I was amazed how fast they came together, and wanted more! I new I needed a better fit than the halloween wear for one day fit.

Part of my new years resolution ( as you may know if you’ve been following ) is to learn how to use my mom’s old serger that she gifted to me. Leggings are a perfect project, as the overlock stitch will help keep the stretchy seams intact. I had some thread breaking issues again. Do you know if thread wears out? I also re-threaded just threw the tension disks. By making slack, unthreading and then re-threading threw. I wonder if there is little bits of dust in there….anyway

Due to the stretchiness of the fabric I needed to play a bit with the fit. I also had this disaster occur with the waistband lol but hey its all about the learning curve here in the lemon bowl. And my serger is a steep curve 🙂 I wasn’t able to nicely serge on the waistband, as I have not yet mastered the stretching of fabric threw Betty’s feed dogs. If you look close you will also see that I sewed wrong to write side lol. After ripping it out I sewed it on my good old regular machine, then finished the edge.

Any way I whipped them up in 3 short sewing sessions (including the pattern draft and fixing ). And like them more than some of my store bought due to the weight of the fabric. I would really love to try this in a light interlock. How yummy would that be.

The photos were taken on the second day in a row of wearing them, and they are still looking snug and nice. I still want to tweak the fit for next time, I want them just a tad tighter threw the top of the thigh and a bit shorter back rise. Also I some how made them way too long 😛 I do really like the fit threw the calf and knee. That was were the halloween costume was almost cutting off circulation.

I’ll leave you with this photo cuz I think its funny how long the legging are. They will probably stay too long for a while, I get all stressed thinking of cutting them, for fear they will be lop sided.

Well I cracked into the serger today. (My wonderful Mom gifted me our old one) It has the manual, and a couple of books about about decorative overclock stitching. Other than being a bit dusty it seemed in great shape. Sadly I remembered nothing from past together, it has been *cough twenty *cough years or so since I used it last.

And thank the Gods it was still threaded!

I decided to oil her up, since she has been retired for many years. I was even able to change the thread colour. The manual taught me a great little trick; you cut the old thread off by the spools and tie the desired colour to the old one. Then pull the tread threw the machines’ loopy tricky parts, only re-threading the needles. It’s kinda tricky but way easier than a complete re-threading.

So all in all I got her working. Finding the right tension was crazy!! The thread to needle # 2, the one involved in the over-locking broke like 15 times. I wish this was and exaggeration. It was so very frustrating I couldn’t get more than a cm sewn and that same thread would bust again. I must have looked crazed, I could feel that woman against machine thing. I couldn’t walk away or call it quits till I had it working. I looked up at one point from the 10 or so threading of the same needle to see this… too funny!

At least I got her working, there are still lots of kinks to work out, the tension thing will be ongoing I think. I’m starting to think after using the serger over the past few days that the numbers are completely arbitrary, I need to just sew with her to find the magic spot on each dial. Also she has a name now…Betty. She is old but still works and is a bit temperamental, also she hates to drive fast.

I’m pretty excited to use Betty in my next few projects, it seems nerdy but I am. The excitement makes the frustration bearable.